


A Convening of Sea Goddesses

by Umeko



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 11:25:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umeko/pseuds/Umeko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Calypso seeks advice from her fellow sea goddesses with regards to how to save her beloved Davy Jones. Ran the Norse sea goddess and Mazu of Chinese folklore answer her call.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Convening of Sea Goddesses

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the opening sequence of the Vikings TV series and the Mazu legends. 
> 
> Ran is the Norse sea goddess who uses her net to drag men down to her undersea hall and the waves are her daughters. I have chosen to represent her as a primordial element. Mazu is a Chinese sea goddess and patron saint of seafarers and fishermen. Legend has it that she was born in the Song Dynasty in southern China and used a lantern on the cliffs to guide the fishermen of her village home at night.
> 
> This work is not approved for distribution by other means - especially not on ebooks.tree.

The waves crashed and the wind howled as if sharing her desperate grief. The wound was mortal. Her beloved was dying and there was nought she could do to heal him. Davy wheezed and struggled to draw breath as the minutes trickled by. He needed a spell which would tie him to her service for all eternity. There was nothing else. However, she had already been weakened by her earlier attempts at healing and she needed the aid of her sisters. She prayed they would heed her pleas. 

She sang to soothe the dying man as she cradled him in her arms. He was cold now, when he had been warm. She kissed his lips, forcing some of her breath into his lungs. She hoped that little piece of her might help him endure a little longer. It had been an accident while he was working on the sea. A snapped rope and the spar had smashed his skull open like an eggshell. He had not opened his eyes since she brought him to her sea cave to nurse. 

The first to arrive was Ran, the Norse goddess of the sea, wild-haired and untamed with her net in hand. Her daughters crowded near her weedy skirts, clawing eagerly for the souls of drowned men to snare for their mother’s watery hall. She regarded both her sister goddess and dying the mortal with cold green eyes. The mortal’s grandmother had been a handmaiden of her cult, the last of her race. But the boy did not worship her as the old ways had been forgotten. Her white-haired daughters scented the blood and were hungry to snatch up this soul. She restrained them as they champed like restless mares. They were not as strong as they once were, back when the Viking longboats prowled the northern seas.   

“Please, Ran. I need your strength.” 

“I have little to give. I see your heart and know why you plead for his life. Are there not men a-plenty to warm your bed, sister?”

“Please… I beg of you.”

“To what end and purpose should his life be extended beyond the mortal ken? I have not the golden apples of Asgard to gift him with. But for the sake of his grandmother, I can grant him this boon,” Ran waved her net over her head, cast it out and drew it in. A ghostly vessel appeared at the mouth of the cave. “A ship that can sail the waters of the living and dead. That he may visit you should he so choose.”

“Ran! Ran! You have stolen my brothers again!” a young woman in a red smock came clambering over the rocks with a red lantern held aloft. Calypso recognized Mazu, the youngest of the sea goddesses. She gasped prettily at the sight of the stricken Davy and scowled at Ran and her daughters. Mazu the merciful was tasked with the snatching stricken sailors from perils at sea. Just as Ran and her daughters snared them in their nets to drown. She was patron goddess of the Chinese fishermen and seafarers, the mortal daughter of a humble fisherman who became divinity.

Perhaps as a once-mortal woman, she might be persuaded. 

“Please, heal him,” Calypso pleaded as the young goddess felt about the fractured bone and broken skin with her slender fingers.

“There is a time to live and a time to die. This man’s time to die has come. There is no task binding him to this realm,” the young goddess shook her head sadly. Too often she had been forced to relinquish the lives of those under her protection to the merciless waves.

“You are the saviour of the seafarers, Mazu. Surely…” Calypso protested angrily.

“Peace. My task is to guide the living back to shore and safety through the storm. I cannot guide the dying and dead for their shore is the farthest one and my lantern shines not there,” Mazu explained sagely. 

“If he has a purpose to return to the living world, would my love be sufficient?” Calypso beseeched. 

Mazu remained silent but Ran laughed cruelly. “Your love, sister? You would tire of him in no time and leave him a ghost adrift! Hand him to my daughters. They would care for him well enough!”

Mazu peered at the ship Ran had tossed up. She clambered nimbly over the rigging and decks. It was unlike the heavy Chinese junks or the humble fishing boats she was used to but she was a sea goddess enough to appreciate the craftsmanship of the vessel. All this while, Calypso shrieked and batted off Ran’s daughters as they reached for the limp Jones.

“Wait! There is a task for which no god or goddess has taken charge yet,” the youngest sea goddess declared. “The ferrying of souls to the farthest shore. My lantern can only guide the living but the souls of those lost at sea are cast adrift on the dead waters unless accepted into Ran’s hall. And the old ways of Ran are dying. Few will find her hall now.”

Ran growled at the reference to her declining power over humankind. Her daughters shivered and melted back to the safety of her skirts. Mazu continued.

“This vessel sails waters both living and dead. Let this vessel carry them to the farthest shore. And every ship must have a captain…” Mazu looked meaningfully at Calypso. “Choose her a worthy captain, sister…” 

 

_10 years later…_

Captain Davy Jones walked the deck. He was looking forward to seeing her again after ten long years of faithful service. The Flying Dutchman was a fine vessel indeed. Together they had done much good, ferrying souls lost at sea to their final rest. One night for ten years on land and it was more than worth it. 


End file.
